Oh no. No. Not the 63. As Miles put it in his post, it’s the “drunk snake” of Newport. And, after riding it myself, I have to agree. One could also call it “whiplash central” with how many times it bends.
I honestly don’t even know where half these pictures were, because the route is so disorienting. So, I guess it’s time for me to get started with describing it. Outbound, it starts at either Stop & Shop on West Main, or at Oxbow Apartments a block up the street. Now, not all trips serve Oxbow, and barely any serve it on the weekends. And even then, not every trip deviates INTO Stop & Shop. Yikes.
We’d eventually turn onto Coddington Highway. However, outbound trips, for whatever weird reason, instead turn right and left onto EAST Main. What?! Then it’d go down Valley Road onto West Main. Like, what were they on?! Was a simple left onto West Main not good enough?! Well, whatever, going down Coddington Highway, we …deviated into the Newport garage?! Oh come on! Oh, it’s a shift change. Understandable.
We then pulled out with a new driver and the real fun was about to begin. We passed the Newport CCRI campus like normal, then deviated into Town Centre. It was here the fun began. We went in a complete circle, 3/4 around a roundabout onto Admiral Kalbfus Road, then we went in what was essentially a U-shape to serve the road behind the Newport CCRI campus. Yeah. This route can’t make up its mind, other than wanting to give whiplash.
We were then on Broadway, and it was a straight shot to the Gateway Center, hopefully. And, indeed it was. It was a straight shot to the Gateway, thank God, and the painful route has ended.
The good: It serves quite a bit, along with a number of apartment buildings. Plus it’s the most-used exclusively-Aquidneck route with 720 daily riders as of 2019.
The bad: …why is it so damn bendy?! WHY?! Never mind that, why does not every trip deviate into Stop & Shop, and not every trip go to Oxbow?! Furthermore, why is East Main only served outbound? And, the biggest headscratcher is this: Why is there a Saturday-only, outbound-only deviation to West House?! Who’s gonna use that?!?! And why is the route so freakin’ bendy?! Also, Sunday service kinda sucks, with only six(!!!!) total round trips, spread out every 85 minutes!
Nearby points of interest: CCRI, mainly.
Overall, it is, as Miles said in his take of this route, a drunk snake. More like freakin’ Whiplash Central! I hope it gets straightened out (quite literally) in the future.
Rating: 3/10
